A navigation system performs travel guidance for enabling a user to easily and quickly reach the selected destination. A typical example is a vehicle navigation system where a vehicle is equipped with a navigation function to guide a driver to a destination through a calculated route. FIGS. 1A-1H show an example of overall procedure and screen display involved in the navigation system for route guidance to a destination.
FIG. 1A shows an example of locator map screen of the navigation system when the destination is not specified. Typically, the navigation system displays a street on which the vehicle (current vehicle position VP) is running on a map image and a name of the street. Other information such as a north pointer NP, a map scale and a current time may also be illustrated on the display screen.
An example of process for specifying a destination in the navigation system through a Point of Interest (POI) search method is shown in FIG. 1B-1F. A main menu screen such as shown in FIG. 1B displays menu items including a “Destination” menu for entering the destination. When selecting “Destination”, the navigation system displays a “Find Destination by” screen as shown in FIG. 1C for specifying an input method for selecting the destination.
When selecting, the “Point of Interest” method in FIG. 1C, the navigation system displays selection methods of point of interest (POI) either by “Place Name” or “Place Type” in FIG. 1D. The “Place Name” is to specify a name of POI, and the “Place Type” is to specify a category of POI. If the “Place Type” is selected in FIG. 1D, the navigation system lists categories of POIs as shown in FIG. 1E. The user selects a desired category of POIs from the lists.
FIG. 1F shows a screen displayed when the user has selected a “Fast Foods” category in the example of FIG. 1E. In this example, the screen includes the name of POI type “Fast Foods” at the top and a list of names of the fast food restaurants typically sorted by distance from the current user position. The user selects a particular restaurant among the restaurant lists for route guidance.
In FIG. 1G, the navigation system calculates an appropriate route to the destination. After determining the calculated route, the navigation system starts the route guidance as shown in FIG. 1H. Typically, the navigation system shows the intersection that is highlighted to show the next turn and a direction of the turn. The search method in a conventional navigation system works if there is only one destination. However, it cannot successfully answer the need of a user who wants to search multiple points of interest of the same type or name and obtain the most efficient route to accomplish purposes of the trip.
Often, when POIs are displayed on the map image of the navigation system, generic icons are displayed. For example, generic icons representing restaurants and gas station may be displayed on the map image as shown in FIG. 2. A generic icon does not differentiate individual stores but simply shows the type and location of the point of interest. Thus, fast food restaurants such as McDonald, Burger King, Pizza Hut are represented by the same generic icons.
When the navigation system shows a map screen as shown in FIG. 2 where points of interest are represented by the generic icons, the user cannot tell which icons indicate what kind of restaurant. In the case where the user wants to eat at a particular restaurant, for example, Pizza Hut, the user cannot easily tell whether Pizza Hut exists just by looking at the map image with generic icons. Moreover, the user may wish to fill in gasoline at a particular gas station chain store because the user can use a reward card, or at a particular gas station chain store because the user knows that it offers competitive prices.
Many stores and franchise chains have corporate logos, or any other mark which are unique to identify the business. Those marks are often readily recognizable by users since the stores promote the marks for recognition. Most of the restaurants noted above have brand icon (corporate icon), but only texts or generic icons are commonly shown on the screen on the conventional navigation system. If brand icons were displayed on a map or menu image, it would be easier for the user to recognize the POIs.
Accordingly, there is a need to use a brand icon to represent a location of a particular brand name of a particular place to improve operability of the navigation system.